Like a Ton of Bricks
by prepare4trouble
Summary: "Okay," Kanan tells him. "Ready to get lost in a very dark maze?" He imagines that he can see the glare Ezra is fixing in his direction, "You're really filling me with confidence right now." A landslide at the worst possible moment leaves Kanan and Ezra trapped in a network of caves with no method of communication with the rest of the crew..
1. Chapter 1

"This is it? One lousy crate?"

Kanan can hear the irritation in Ezra's voice as he stares at their target. He's not wrong, one single crate abandoned for pickup by another cell when they were called away on an urgent mission hardly seems like a good use of their time, but that doesn't matter. They are here to do a job. "One lousy crate filled with blasters that could mean the difference between life and death in a battle," he tells him. "Not everyone has a lightsaber, you know."

Ezra sighs and Kanan remembers the fate of his Padawan's weapon. He hasn't been able to build a new one yet, relying on more mundane weapons instead.

"Good point. Okay, let's get it loaded."

Ezra takes a few steps in the direction of the crate awaiting them just inside the mouth of the cave, when the ground begins to shake violently. Kanan hears the rumbling coming from above them moments before he starts to feel it, not through the Force, but through vibrations in the ground as the falling stones and earth gather speed as they slide down the mountain.

Instinctively, he runs forward into the cave. He pushes Ezra from behind, then as he overtakes him, grabs him by the arm and drags him forward into the cave until they reach a wall of stone at the back. He feels Ezra's shock and surprise, whether it is surprise at the fact that he isn't allowing him to flee outward, or at the accuracy of his grab, Kanan isn't sure. Either way, he doesn't let go as the rocks begin to fall.

He holds his free hand above him, harnessing the power of the Force to ensure that none of the falling stone lands on them, within seconds he becomes aware of Ezra doing the same thing, and it is only then that he releases his grip on his Padawan's arm and concentrates all of his efforts on maintaining the outward pressure inside the bubble of Force that they are creating together.

The quake stops as suddenly as it had begun, the stone walls and floor of the cavern still. Carefully, he eases up on the pressure and is relieved to find that the roof doesn't cave in. At least, not yet.

"You okay?" he asks, turning his head in Ezra's direction more out of habit than anything else. He can feel Ezra's shock communicated through the Force, but he manages to disguise it in his voice as he replies.

"Yeah, I think so. What was that, a bomb?"

Kanan shakes his head. "Earthquake," he explains. "The planet is prone to them, that's why the Empire leaves it alone, that's why we use it for storage."

"Right. Hera mentioned it on the way here."

The mission had been supposed to be a simple one, get down the the surface, collect the crate of weapons and bring it home. So much for that, the crate lies buried under a pile of rubble near the mouth of the cave. Kanan tries his radio. "Specter one to Ghost." There is no reply.

"That can't be good," Ezra says. "Why did you drag us in here? Wouldn't we have been better on the other side of the pile of rocks?" His shock and surprise at the unexpected quake has given way to the beginnings of panic, still well disguised in his voice but definitely present.

"We wouldn't have been able to run fast enough or far enough to avoid ending up squashed as flat as the crate we were supposed to be collecting."

Ezra shifts his position and swallows. "You mean the blasters…"

"Aren't going to be much use to anybody any more," Kanan finished for him. He crossed the cave to the other side and tried the radio again. Still nothing.

"Is it broken?" Ezra asks. "I'll try mine."

"I wouldn't bother," Kanan tells him. "The rocks here contain heavy metals, they must be too thick for the signal to get through. Give me a minute to check what we're dealing with…"

He takes a careful step in the direction of the mouth of the cave, feeling with the tips of his toes in a narrow arc before each step. Under normal circumstances he would be able to rely on the Force to tell him about any obstacles in his way, right now, he is concentrating all of his attention on the cave mouth, checking what kind of a situation they had gotten themselves into this time.

He turns back to face Ezra. "It isn't great news. There are tons of rocks and dirt here, and more piled on top of it. Even with the Force on our side, we won't be able to move it."

"Well, we're going to have to try," Ezra said. "Unless you want to get used to living in a cave."

"Even if we had the strength, and we don't, it would be too dangerous. One wrong move and we could bring half the mountain down on our heads."

"Do you have your lightsaber?" Ezra asks.

Kanan instinctively feels for the place where his weapon should be, he knows it isn't there before his fingers close around nothing. He doesn't wear it as much recently as he had in recent years. For a while, being a Jedi had become important to him again, wearing the weapon was a symbol of that. In the weeks since Malachor he had wielded the weapon only for solo practice, still lacking confidence in his ability to use it to defend himself. He shakes his head, "I didn't think I'd need it for grabbing a box of supplies from a cave. We wouldn't be able to cut away at the rocks anyway, That would be worse than trying to move them with the Force."

"That's not why I wanted it," Ezra tells him. He shifted a little uncomfortably. "It's dark in here, Kanan. As in can't see your hand in front of your face dark. I thought we - I - could use it to generate a bit of light."

Kanan takes a breath and exhales slowly. Of course it's dark, they were inside a cave that had been completely sealed off by a cave-in. The sun had been their only light source, and it was well and truly blocked out. He could kick himself for not having realized sooner.

"Never mind, right?" Ezra says with a weak smile in his voice. "You can teach me some of those tricks you've been picking up the past few weeks, right? Seeing through the Force?"

Kanan sighs. "Let's concentrate on getting out of here for now. If I need to try to teach you anything along the way, I will, but I'm not exactly a master at those skills, I'm still figuring things out myself."

"You see to be doing pretty great to me," Ezra tells him.

Kanan feels an irrational stab of irritation at that. He might appear to be doing well, and it was good that he was at least fooling Ezra, but beneath the surface there were times when he felt like he was barely holding it together. Taking on this mission - his first since their return from Malachor, had been a way of easing himself back into it, the most simple supply run they had ever done, nothing even remotely strenuous, no danger of running into a battle.

"Thanks," he says dully, suddenly glad that the playing field has been leveled and Ezra can't see the expression he knows he is wearing. "This is the last time we don't come prepared. You knew we were going into a cave, you didn't think to bring a flashlight?"

"Believe me, I'm kicking myself now," Ezra tells him. "If I'd known this was going to happen, I might have packed differently."

Kanan reaches out through the Force, into the network of tunnels leading out from the mouth of the cave. The mountain is a maze filled with dead ends and deadly drops, but the way they came is blocked and their only chance is to find another way out. "We need to go," he says.

"Go? Go where?"

Kanan doesn't react to the question, he is concentrating too hard on the way ahead. He had seen a map once, years ago, but the memory is misty and unreliable now. He adds imap/i underneath iflashlight/i and iperson with a set of working eyes/i to his list of equipment to remember in the future, then brushes a hand lightly across the cold stone wall of the cavern. "There is a network of natural tunnels through the mountain. Can you follow me?" he asks. "If I go ahead, can you keep track of my movements?"

Ezra hesitates a moment too long before he replies. "Shouldn't we stay put? Wait for someone to come. It's not like they don't know where we are."

Kanan considers this for a moment. "We have no way of communicating with the rest of the crew, they'll know about the landslide, but they won't know if we're alive or dead. If they try to come for us through that pile of boulders, they could bring the mountain down on us all. I think I can find the best way out with the Force to guide me, and with any luck, maybe Hera or one of the others can find the way in using a map, we can meet them half way."

"Map?" Ezra says. "There's a map? Why didn't we bring it?"

"Yeah, it would have been really useful to us. Me blind and you without a flashlight."

Ezra sighs. "Good point. Okay, let's do this."

Kanan doesn't move at first, he concentrates on the network of tunnels through the cave, listening to the route that the Force is providing, feeling the difference between rocks and stones and the spaces between, until he is sure he has located a path through the mountain that ends with an unblocked cave.

"Okay," Kanan tells him. "Ready to get lost in a very dark maze?"

He imagines that he can see the glare Ezra is fixing in his direction, "You're really filling me with confidence right now."

"That's what I'm here for," Kanan tells him. He clasps Ezra supportively on the shoulder and allows his hand to sit there for several moments, fingers squeezing gently. "It'll be fine," he says. "We'll be in there an hour at most."

He can sense Ezra's apprehension. He ignores it. Mentioning it wouldn't help any more than people constantly pointing out his own uncertainty would held him navigate his new situation.

"Do you want to keep a hand on my shoulder, or do you think you can track me through the Force?" he asks. Ezra should be able to track him easily, or rather he thinks that is the case. Honestly, he can't remember ever having had to try such a thing himself until just a few weeks ago when he had been left with no other choice, and already he was beginning to forget which skills were inherent to a Jedi and which he had picked up through his blindness.

"I think I can track you," Ezra tells him.

Kanan nods, realizing half way through the gesture how futile it is. "You'll find it easier if you keep a hand on the wall then, it'll help ground you. And be careful of overhanging rocks, and uneven ground. And one more thing." His own hand on the wall of the cavern, he starts walking, slowly enough that Ezra, less used to walking without vision - and Kanan himself is still far from accustomed to it - can keep up.

"What's that?" Ezra asks from a few feet behind.

"Next time, don't rely on the blind guy to bring the flashlight."


	2. Chapter 2

Ezra sighs quietly into the darkness. Even as he tries to stop them, he can feel his eyes straining against it, trying to pick up any hint of light. He doesn't think he has ever known darkness so complete. It is not a comfortable experience.

The walls of the cave appear to grow narrower with every step. He keeps one hand glued to the wall, the other hovers just in front of him, bobbing around the level of his stomach despite his efforts to force it to his side. He knows that Kanan is in front, and that he will warn him of any upcoming obstacles, he trusts in the Force not to allow him to walk into anything he shouldn't, but still the hand resolutely refuses to move from its guard position.

He hates this. He hates it all the more for the fact that every time his loathing of the situation rears its head, he remembers that this is Kanan's life now, that when they emerge from the caves, his Master will still be in the dark. He remembers that that is because of him, and that thought intensifies his state of misery until it feels like a hard, heavy ball in the pit of his stomach.

"You doing okay back there?" Kanan asks. He actually sounds… not cheerful as such, but there is no tension in his voice. He sounds as though the situation doesn't bother him as much as it should.

Ezra supposes that that should reassure him. It does, a little. "Yeah," he replies as he stumbles over an unexpected dip in the path. Instinctively, he grips the wall of the cave with both hands, and allows himself a moment to recover before continuing. "Ready to be out of here though," he adds, and instantly feels another stab of guilt.

"Working on it," Kanan tells him. "Okay, we're turning to the left just ahead. Make sure you don't miss the turn because there's a pretty deep drop coming up."

Ezra can sense a wide, open space before him, he imagines it as a large cavern, the floor and roof adorned with stalagmites and stalactites formed by centuries of slowly dripping water carrying the same minerals and heavy metals that is blocking their radio signal to the Ghost. In his mind's eye he sees the drop, sudden and sheer, straight down onto sharp rocks below. He shudders, wondering whether it is just his imagination running away with him, or whether the image has come from somewhere, supplied by the Force.

Is that how Kanan sees now? In glimpses of the world, half gleaned from the Force, half from his own imagination with no way to tell the difference between the two? He concentrates hard on the space in front of him, exploring the distance from one side to the next, the shape of the area, the size of the space. The more he tries, the less he sees. The towering stalagmites fade away, replaced by a vague impression of the ground and he realizes that they were never there at all, they had simply been created in his imagination from the pages of a book his mother had read to him as a child. The new impression of the area ahead of him is much less majestic, far less detailed, but he knows it is correct. He knows it in the same way that without looking, he knows the position of his feet on the ground, the way in which he is standing. He feels it, without seeing.

Without warning, a hand grips him from behind and pulls hard, dragging him backwards and around a corner. He thrusts his hands out to the sides for support, flailing as the unexpected tug throws his sense of balance out of whack and he stumbles. Only the strength of Kanan's grip on his shoulder saves him from hitting the ground. He shakes himself free of the grip and spins around to glare angrily through the total darkness.

"Okay?" Kanan asks him.

Shaking, Ezra brushes his hands swiftly down the front of his clothes, wiping away the dampness on his palms. The palm of his right hand throbs harshly, and he touches it gingerly with his fingertips. They come away damp and sticky, but the injury is minor and already beginning to clot. He wraps the end of his sleeve around the cut and squeezes to blot up the worst of the blood. "Ouch," he says pointedly.

"You were about to walk off the edge of a very steep drop," Kanan tells him. "Believe me, it would have been much worse than 'ouch'."

"I…" Ezra blinks compulsively, still trying to clear the darkness before his eyes. He realizes now, far too late, that he had lost track of Kanan, concentrating instead on the dimensions of the cavern before him, with no thought whatsoever to the distance between him and it. "Thanks," he mutters, embarrassed.

"Thank me by not falling down a hole," Kanan tells him. "The last thing I need is to have to carry you out of here. Or to have to explain to Hera how you ended up with two broken legs."

Ezra can't help it, his face splits into a wide grin and he laughs. "I'll try not to fall down any holes," he promises.

"Do, or…"

"Do not," Ezra finishes for him. "Yeah, I remember. I think I'm definitely going to go for 'do not,' in this situation. Thanks for watching my back."

Kanan makes a sound that is almost, but not quite, a laugh. "I think that's the first time you've said anything even referring to sight to me since Malachor," he says.

Ezra feels his eyes widen in panic. "Sorry, I didn't…"

"Don't. It's good," Kanan tells him. "You need to stop tip-toeing around me. All of you. Believe me, it's really not as helpful as you think." He pauses, thoughtful. "I think it's time for a break," he decides.

Ezra hears him lean against the wall then sit slowly, easing himself down onto the hard stone floor. He follows his lead, dropping down to the ground next to him.

"We need to add water to the list," Kanan says.

"List?"

"The one I've been constructing in my head. This is the last time we go wandering into a situation unprepared. I knew this planet was prone to earthquakes, I should have planned for this eventuality."

Ezra shrugs, "I don't think anyone could have planned for this particular eventuality," he says. "By the way, I hate to sound like a kid being dragged out on a trip, but are we nearly there? You said an hour, and it has to have been twice that already."

"I had to alter the route," Kanan tells him. Some of the caves I thought were passable turned out not to be.

"Oh." Ezra leans his head back against the wall. He trusts Kanan to get them out. If it takes a little longer than they had expected, they can live with it. He closes his eyes, it isn't like they're much use for anything right now anyway, and shivers a little as he feels his muscles begin to relax. The temperature deep in the network of caves is significantly cooler than on the surface, or in the shallow cave mouth where the weapons that they had been supposed to be rescuing had been stored.

He wonders where they are now in relation to the cave that they had entered through. In all the twists and turns that they have taken, he has completely lost track of the direction that they are traveling, as well as their depth inside the mountain, because for a while, they had definitely been traveling downward. He thinks of the tons of rock surrounding them on all sides, and suddenly finds himself hit with a wave of claustrophobia. He can feel nothing but the ground around them, swallowing them as they travel deeper and deeper inside it. He tries to reach out with the Force, expanding his awareness further. He finds the maze of tunnels surrounding them, and a lot more rock. It doesn't help much.

"Kanan?" He asks hesitantly. "What's it like to see through the Force?"

Kanan doesn't answer at first. The silence stretches taut between them, made even worse by the darkness. Ezra opens his mouth to apologize, but Kanan finally replies before he is able.

"It's hard to explain," he says. "When you say 'see' through the Force, that's not entirely accurate. It's an awareness. You'll have experienced it yourself, but maybe not realized. When you know something is going to happen before it does, what move your enemy is going to make next in battle, or what you're going to find around the next corner when you run into a room… It's something that normally only happens in the heat of battle, you know, life or death situations. It's that, but trained to be switched on all the time."

"Sounds difficult," Ezra says.

"It's… tiring," Kanan agrees. "It takes a lot of concentration all of the time, and that's only to get a fraction of the information I could have gathered with my eyes." He pauses, thoughtful. "But I'm learning," he adds. "It's getting better."

Ezra sighs. "I'm sorry," he says.

"It's not your fault, Ezra."

"I'm the one who…" he stops, shakes his head. "We should get moving." He begins to climb to his feet, but stops when he realizes that Kanan is not moving. "Kanan?"

"Sit down. We've been needing to talk about this for a while now," Kanan tells him. "Might as well do it now, while you can't make an excuse to leave."

Ezra's heart sinks as he lowers himself back to the ground. Kanan is right, the conversation is long overdue, but he hasn't been able to face it, staring at that mask his mentor wears to hide his scars, knowing that he can't look back at him. Knowing that it's all his fault.

"We all make our own choices," Kanan tells him. You were fooled by Maul, but I'm the one that made the decision to remain on Malachor, and I stand by it. We were sent there for a reason, and I have to trust that the Force has a plan, that everything that happens happens for a reason."

Faith in the Force appears to come easily to Kanan, who grew up surrounded by it, using it, learning to understand it. For a kid who didn't even know what the term meant a few years ago, it wasn't as easy. "You talk about the Force like it's a living thing, like it can think and scheme and have opinions. Like we're all just pawns in it's plan. That's not right, is it?"

"Some times, I'm not so sure," Kanan tells him. "But the point is that we were sent to Malachor for a reason, and you were right to want to stay until we completed the mission."

"But Ahsoka…" Ezra feels himself falter at the mention of her name, feels the well of emotion deep within him begin to stir.

Kanan places a hand on his shoulder, the same one he had grabbed earlier in an effort to prevent him falling into the cavern. "The Jedi taught that death isn't the end. If she died at Vader's hand, she's not gone, she's just… more difficult to reach now."

Ezra wipes away the tears gathering in his eyes, and takes a deep breath to still the bubbling grief within him. _Emotion, yet peace._ That was what Kanan had attempted to teach him once, it hadn't meant anything to him then, and it still doesn't, not really, but something in the words resonate with him now. "I'm the only one that escaped unscathed," he whispers. "I'm the one that made us go - made us stay - and the two of you…"

"Ezra." Kanan pulls him closer, draping an arm around his Padawan and squeezing him. "We both know that you didn't escape unscathed. Your scars might be deeper, more difficult to see, but they are there and you're going to have to learn to carry them just like the rest of us."

Ezra shakes his head, but can't bring himself to speak.

"If anything, I think yours will be the more difficult journey; but we're going to help you through it, okay? You're going to be faced with some difficult decisions, and you need to stay strong and make the right choices, for all our sakes, but especially for yourself."

"I don't…" Ezra shakes his head. "I don't understand."

Kanan shifts his position, moves his arm from around Ezra's shoulders and gets to his feet. Ezra shudders at the sudden lack of contact, finding himself once again awash in a sea of darkness. Kanan reaches down, takes his hand and pulls him to his feet. "If you really don't, you will soon. Just remember that we're there for you, all of us, okay?"

Ezra allows himself to be pulled into a standing position, before he nods, unsure whether Kanan can perceive the motion or not. "You too," he says.

"Come on," Kanan tells him, "Let's get out of here, I don't think it's too much further."

* * *

The temperature has been increasing slightly for the past half hour, a sure sign that they are nearing the way out of the mountain and into the warmth of the sunlight outside, but it is not until they turn a corner and light begins to filter back into the world, that Ezra realizes the journey is almost over.

The change is barely perceptible, a tiny sprinkling of light that could almost be his imagination. He blinks, uncertain at first, turns his head from one side to the other, then slowly raises a hand in front of his face and rotates it. As it moves, he can perceive what looks like a shadow in the darkness, barely there, but so significant he finds himself coming to a complete stop in order to better concentrate on it.

Kanan notices almost immediately. Ezra knows, whether by the sound of his voice or through the Force he isn't sure, that Kanan has turned to face him.

"We're almost there," Ezra tells him. He can barely contain the relief at the idea of escape from the network of caves that has trapped them for the better part of a day.

Kanan turns back and continues walking. Ezra follows him, every step bringing more light to his world.

Finally, they turn another corner and hit pure daylight, it is so bright that Ezra has to cover his eyes for a moment while they adjust. He laughs, relief flooding him so hard he almost falls to the ground. They are in another cave not dissimilar to the one they had been forced to abandon after the landslide, but this one appears to have survived relatively undamaged. Beyond the mouth of the cave, the sun is setting, bleaching the sky a bright mixture of oranges and purples. "We made it," he says, awestruck at the view.

Kanan presses his radio. "Specter one to Ghost," he tries.

The radio crackles to life in answer, Hera's relieved voice fills the cave. "Kanan? Are you alright?"

"We're both fine," Kanan assures her, smiling widely in relief. "We just had to take a little detour. I'm afraid we weren't able to bring the blasters with us, though."

"Forget the blasters," Hera tells him. "I thought you were dead! I've been worried sick! We all have."

"Sorry about that. The metals in the rocks block communication," Kanan explains. "Trust me, we'd have been in touch sooner if we could."

"What's your location?" That's Sabine's voice, interrupting over the channel.

Kanan hesitates. "Not sure. We're somewhere on the west side of the mountain. We managed to walk through the tunnels and out the other side."

"We'll come and find you. Zeb and I have been out here for hours trying to dig you out, we were just about to plant some charges and blow the blockage away with a controlled explosion."

The corners of Kanan's mouth twitch in amusement. "Sorry to disappoint you," he says.

"Shut up. Wait there. We're on the way."

The radio goes dead.

Ezra grins as he walks to the mouth of the cave and settles down to keep watch for the rescue party.

Kanan follows him, stopping a little further from the mouth of the cave, and sitting down with his back against the wall. "So much for a nice easy mission for my first time back out," he says.

"I don't know," Ezra tells him. "By our standards, this was pretty tame. Nobody tried to kill us."

"Apart from the mountain."

Ezra shrugs, "Well yeah, apart from that." He takes a deep breath of clean air, relieved to no longer be breathing the stale air that had been trapped under the mountain with them. He looks out over the view as the sun begins to sink into the horizon.

"Good to be in the light again?" Kanan asks.

Ezra glances in his direction sharply, but Kanan doesn't appear to be upset or jealous at the experience that he is missing. Instead he looks relaxed and at peace. Ezra smiles. "Yeah."

"Just promise me you'll remember that feeling if you ever find yourself tempted into the dark," Kanan tells him.

Ezra thinks of the holocron; of the secrets it holds, the knowledge that he knows could help them if they would just let it. His smile falters for a moment before he forcibly widens it again. "Is that another way of telling me to remember a flashlight next time I'm going to be in a cave?"

"Exactly," Kanan tells him, letting it go for now. He rubs absently at the edge of his mask where it makes contact with the skin of his face.

"You can take it off, you know," Ezra tells him. "If it's bothering you. You don't have to cover your face around me - any of us."

Kanan's mouth curves into a smile. "I know," says, but he doesn't make any move to remove it.

Before either one of them can say anything else, the engine hum of the Phantom approaching fills the air, and Ezra gets to his feet and begins to wave them in to a landing.


End file.
